Cleveland Browns: Top 5 remaining free agent targets

4. FS Malik Hooker

The Browns landed John Johnson III at a great price, and he’s a fantastic fit in the Woods defense. His versatility and all-around excellence will be a huge boost, but even he cannot be everywhere at once. Johnson does practically everything, but what he does least is function as a single-high deep safety.

He lacks the ideal range and speed for the position, and likely won’t be seen back alone very often. That’s not Ronnie Harrison’s game, either. Grant Delpit can do it very well, but he likely won’t have a major role early on as he continues to recover from a torn achilles, and using him solely as an angel safety is a waste of his unique skillset.

There are still quality single-high safeties on the market, one of which is Malik Hooker. The former Ohio State Buckeye fell to the 15th overall pick in 2017 due to injury concerns, and unfortunately, those injuries have continued to plague him in the NFL, He missed almost all of 2020 due to a torn achilles, just like Delpit. He should be very cheap because of his injury history, and because of how serious an achilles tear is. If he were to come back strong, Hooker would give the Cleveland defense a dynamic it does not currently have, and would give Woods even more options in his secondary.

Alternative: Tre Boston

Another versatile player, Tre Boston was released by the Carolina Panthers due to his $6 million salary for this season, which would not be bad at all in a normal financial year. He remains unsigned, despite being one of the league’s very best deep coverage players for the past seven years. He is less of a risk than Hooker, at the expense of perhaps a lower ceiling and a higher cost.